BAND OF THE MONTH JANUARY 2013

There are way too many bands these days; A lot of them are really talented, some of them not so much. I created a new category for my music blog, “Band of The Month”, in an effort to help my followers discover new music.

Each month I become infatuated with a band. I will go through their entire catalog several times in an almost obsessive manner. The band I’m obsessed with this month is Future Islands. Allow me to share with you why I think this band is so awesome.

————————————————————————————————————————————

Future Islands are a synthpop band based in Baltimore, Maryland. The band is composed of Gerrit Welmers (keyboards and programming), William Cashion (bass, acoustic and electric guitars), and Samuel T. Herring (words and vocals).

The heart’s often cruel mystery is the terrain that is plundered over and over again; the complexity of which is revealed not only by the lush instrumentation of this glorious third record, but by Herring’s raw, arresting vocal. His voice is a mix of a wolfish howl and boyish incantation, dripping pain on the title song, which is introduced by a slow burning synth that evolves from the background before filling the atmosphere with melancholy.” – Consequence Of Sound

————————————————————————————————————————————

ALBUMS:

‘Wave Like Home’ (2008)

“Wave Like Home seems to play out like the chronological soundtrack to a torrid high school romance. Sam Herring, Gerrit Welmers, William Cashion, and Eric Murillo really rev up their punk motor on the album’s early songs, such as “Old Friend” and “Flicker and Flutter,” which spark up the heart-knows-no-bounds kinetics of lonely adolescent lust.” – Tiny Mixtapes

‘In Evening Air’ (2010)

“Taking cues from early Devo and New Order and replacing the dance-pop movement with rich characterization and storytelling, they’ve found themselves at a pleasant distance from most formal genre comparisons. Their music is playful but steeped in subtle detail, with both emotional heft and a pungent sense of theatricality.” – Pitchfork

‘On The Water’ (2011)

“Their third and latest LP. On The Water, is more invested in wide-open spaces. The opening (and title) track gives all the elements of the band’s sound more leg room: Herring’s unhurried vocals, epic, smoldering synths, and the steady churn of a not-too-choppy tide on a sample that begins the song. Recorded in a friend’s house in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, overlooking the Pasquotank River, On the Water draws from the imagery and movement of the sea.” – Pitchfork